Under a more anonymous Chris Petersen, Washington aims to break out

Apr. 27, 2014
|

Washington Huskies coach Chris Petersen, left, walks and talks with Seahawks coach Pete Carroll during Washington's pro day April 2 in Seattle. For the first time in nearly a decade, Petersen isn't the most prominent football coach in his own town, or state. / Joe Nicholson, Associated Press

by George Schroeder, USA TODAY Sports

by George Schroeder, USA TODAY Sports

SEATTLE - For someone who describes himself as a "shy, private person in a public job," the new reality has been a very nice perk. When Chris Petersen leaves his new office â?? the one with the fantastic view he still marvels at, every day â?? and occasionally gets off campus, he goes mostly unrecognized.

"No one has a clue who I am," he says.

That's not quite true, of course. A few weeks back, during spring break, when the Washington Huskies' new football coach took his son sightseeing in downtown Seattle, four people approached Petersen, and the conversations invariably started with something like: "Hey coach â?¦"

"They were all from Boise," Petersen says, laughing.

He knows it won't last. One way or another, his face will become familiar. But after all those years at Boise State â?? a place he loved for its quality of life, but where he says he couldn't go anywhere without being recognized â?? the change has been "really refreshing."

The obvious question, even after the Huskies wrapped up spring practice, remained: After all those years on the blue turf, why did Petersen finally leave?

He'll average about $3.6 million a year, a third more than his last salary at Boise State. He'll preside over a program with far greater resources, and what feels like far bigger potential.

But in a nomadic profession where coaches moving upward as quickly as possible is the norm, Petersen resisted overtures from programs in more prominent conferences than the Mountain West and WAC on several occasions. After awhile, it seemed he might just stay forever in a place where he had built one of college football's most consistent winners.

"It was just time for a new challenge," he says. "It's really hard to put into words, other than it was just kind of a feel. I loved Boise, loved my time there. It was great. That's why I was so careful."

***

Boise State went 92-12 in eight seasons with Petersen as head coach. If the Broncos weren't the first BCS-buster â?? that honor went to Utah â?? their overtime victory against Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl was the signature moment of the movement. But often lost in the three perfectly crazy trick plays that beat the Sooners was the fact that for the first three quarters or so, the Broncos were the better, more physical team.

"It just sort of happened that we ran a couple tricks when we really needed them, and they worked," Petersen says, "and so that's what people remember rather than an off-tackle play."

Over the next few years, as the Broncos kept winning â?? and kept beating BCS conference opponents â?? the rest of college football figured what the Broncos were about. (Petersen, by the way, is more proud of their second trip to the Fiesta Bowl, which resulted in a hard-won victory against TCU.) An 8-4 record in 2013 was the first time in his tenure that Boise State didn't win at least 10 games, but it's not as if the program had dipped.

Why Washington? Why now?

"Everybody always had me pegged for staying forever, and I never said that," Petersen says. "I'd say, 'I'll never say that,' because I know times change people. It was just time. It was time with the right opportunity, is what it was.

"Washington and the (Pac-12) conference was so attractive to me."

***

Petersen won't admit this, but what else was there to be accomplished? And though the Broncos continued to win, the college football landscape shifted around them, first with realignment â?? as fellow BCS-busters Utah and TCU moved into "Big Five" conferences, Boise State was left behind â?? and then with the advent of the College Football Playoff.

The era of the BCS-buster is over. Under the old system, Boise State was a longshot to reach the national championship game, but it might have been easier then than now. Even with slots for four teams instead of two, the BCS formula probably was more likely to rank Boise State (or a similarly qualified program) No. 1 or 2 than a selection committee is to evaluate everything, including strength of schedule, and place them into the four-team tournament.

So when Petersen, who will turn 50 in October, says he wanted the right fit, and that it was time to leave the comfort zone he'd created in Boise, it makes sense on several levels.

At least initially, comfort won't be an issue at Washington.

The Huskies faced the usual spring questions, both pressing (who's the quarterback?) and also intriguing (star linebacker Shaq Thompson as a running back, a la UCLA's Myles Jack?). The Huskies are, according to Petersen, "paper-thin" at several positions on the depth chart, a fact that surprised him. The bigger part of the project, though, is infusing the roster â?? the entire program â?? with Petersen's philosophy.

Petersen praises Steve Sarkisian for rebuilding the Huskies from the ashes of 0-12 in 2008 to respectable. But like every coach, he has his own system, built over the years in Boise with "OKGs" â?? players who were "Our Kind of Guys," possessing intangibles that were just as important as their talent â?? and a unique way of doing things that, over time, became ingrained as a culture.

Petersen says the Huskies should expect to spend some time at the Waterfront Activities Center just the other side of the Husky Stadium parking lot. "I can guarantee you this," he says. "Our team will be in kayaks racing this summer."

There will be plenty of other team-building, too. It's an ongoing process.

" 'Sark' did a great job getting things going here," Petersen says. "But you don't just pick up the baton and start running. It takes time to get your way of doing it (going), because they're just used to doing things a different way."

***

More obvious, there are the external challenges. Although Washington has exponentially more resources and potential, it also faces very significant hurdles to realize it.

Petersen's building project starts from a very nice foundation, laid in the past five years by Sarkisian. That's physically evident, every time Petersen looks up from his desk. The head coach's office features a fireplace and looks out over Husky Stadium. Beyond that, the view is of Lake Washington, and on a clear day, the snow-capped Cascades.

"Yeah," he says, "it's something else" â?? especially when compared to his former office, which for part of his time at Boise State looked out onto â?¦ the back of temporary bleachers.

Sarkisian had only moved into the office last fall, when a $280 million renovation of Husky Stadium was complete. Before reaping many of the benefits of the change from an aging, substandard stadium to some of the nation's finest facilities, Sarkisian was gone, back to Los Angeles and USC.

That provided the opportunity â?? and the right fit â?? for Petersen (who had also been involved in the USC search). The general sentiment among Husky fans was that they had traded up, but Petersen acknowledges things are different at Washington than at Boise State.

In the years of Washington's decline, from national power to irrelevant and back now to something slightly above average, another national power arose in the Pacific Northwest. A historically one-sided rivalry with Oregon still is, but now it's the Ducks dominating (10 consecutive wins against Washington, and few have been truly competitive) and existing as a perennial Top 10 program. From the same division, Stanford has won two consecutive Pac-12 championships and played in three consecutive BCS bowls.

Petersen acknowledges those opponents as formidable obstacles, and also emphasizes another: the traditional Apple Cup rivalry with Washington State. Beyond those, there's this reality: Just about every team in the Pac-12 is a threat on any weekend.

"The parity is really there across the board," he says. "That's gonna be the biggest difference."

That simply wasn't the case for Boise State, either in the Mountain West or before it the WAC, at least not after Petersen built the Broncos into BCS-busters. Not counting the seemingly annual showdown with a BCS conference team, Boise State was only seriously challenged once or twice a season. Many weeks, the Broncos were in little real danger of losing.

That's no longer true for Petersen.

"For me, the big difference is gonna be the competition we play week in and week out," he says. "Other than that, it's the same."

Well, almost. For now at least, there's also the unexpected bonus.In any poll of local celebrities, Petersen is well down the list. Narrow the category to football coaches? He's still a distant No. 2 â?? and the other guy just won the Super Bowl.

"That's been a nice change," Petersen says. "Now, you know, you do some things and you're here longer, and that changes. But right now, I'm really enjoying it."